#butyoudontlooksick #butidontcare
Please tell me what ‘sick’ looks like✌🏼favourite spot in my new apartment: my lovely B E D ❤️ Also, till sometime last year, I couldn’t even sleep/lie-down on my tummy because my shoulders, elbows and wrists couldn’t weight bear without sublaxing or dislocating. I still can’t spend too long like that but hey, something is better than nothing!
Experiencing the monsoon in India after a good 20 years. It’s beautiful outside. This is what I wake up to every day now and it’s been lovely. I was dreading my life here during summer just a few months back. It made managing my symptoms so much more challenging! Thankfully, it’s 22 degrees now which feels quite calming to my system. I’ve returned from Canada (strange how it felt so much like home) with so much more clarity than when I left but the question that still lingers is whether India will ever be home. I’m going to let the question rest for a bit and allow the answer to come up on its own. Despite knowing for a fact that I’m very open to giving this place a chance, I didn’t exactly feel welcomed here when I landed. I still haven’t found words to the experience on the airport but I know for sure that it was traumatic. It was trauma that I need time to recover from. At this point, I believe that creating a safe space + health routine that is grounding and supports my well-being would be a good starting point. Last couple of days were a stretch but I wanted to make sure my space is set before my recovery starts. To be very honest, the only place I find some refuge right now is in my very own apartment. It’s my sanctuary.
Thank you for the safety, refuge, healing and all the joy and laughter under one roof. You’ll always be home. This photo is also making me miss my chosen family @shreya.j90 @rohant @rowanity @botakbaba + Raj @drishtisk @prachh_p @abhikdamani ❤️🌙✨📿🧘🏼♀️
A place close to my heart
PC: Anurag Dalvi
My strengthening studio at home ✨
An old post which was left unpublished for a while
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This place still reminds me of pain and suffering. A pain that held me back for years and has taken me years to let go.
This place isn’t quite home. It never felt like home and I’m not afraid to say so anymore.
This place was more of a refuge from another place claiming to be home but all it did was caused more suffering.
I searched everywhere for a place I’d want to come back to and only found places I wanted to run away from. Farther and father, every year.
Soon I realised I had to create a home for myself and that this process had to begin from within. That safe space I so terribly craved and needed had to be created with love, first towards myself.
I had to learn to be my own pillar of support and for that I had to unlearn the idea of constantly supporting and accommodating for everyone else.
To create a home for myself, I had to first be willing to accept my story; one that is way more than what I speak about.
Today, I am thankful to have a safe space for myself. A sanctuary of my own where I get to take care of myself mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
A space that allows me to hear my own voice and follow my heart. A space where my creativity runs wild. A space where I get to build new relationships and tend to those that matter. A space that protects me because I have learned to protect it with healthy boundaries.
I am thankful to have found silence. That stillness, which some would run away from because it’s just too much to handle. I am so thankful to have realised that once you do truly come home, there is never any need to seek it else where.
And if ever I need to rebuild a home for myself all over again, I know exactly where to start.
-not quite home
So I’m sitting in my living room listening to mantras, my palo santo burning near my bookshelf, and i suddenly realize how quiet my entire apartment is. Everything is quiet. I’m in a noisy country but at this very point in time it’s all so quiet around me. I love this. I crave for this so much. This quietness is something I want and need to live this life to my very best.
There’s been far too much movement in my life lately (or should I say, all my life) that these moments of stillness is what brings me a sense of stability and peace. It allows me to connect with myself, which has been a little hard lately considering how terribly off track I am in terms of my daily routine and rituals that help me stay sane and manage my health. I can’t possibly stress enough how much a routine and some personal rituals have helped me to get here.
As the unpacking ends and the actual settling in begins, it looks like I can finally let go a little, slow down and focus a lot more on my health.
For the last eight months or so, my health took a backseat as I simply had to get through this move. I’ve been feeling sort of out of my element, you know, kind of scattered and all I know is that it’s not where I like to be. Despite dealing with a lot more health issues throughout 2017, I’ve had to push myself and make things happen. My thought was, the quicker I got things done, the quicker I got to rest. And now that my sanctuary has come alive to quite some extent, it’s time to prioritise health and self-care and work towards my next goal. More on that later.
Okay, I’m going to keep my phone away now and get back to sitting still. To listening to my heart beat. To watching those crazy thoughts come and go. To noticing pain.
To being thankful for being here.
✨
#sanctuary #quiet #evenings #peace #calm #love #home #mantra #meditation #chronicillness #pain #suffering #eds #ehlersdanlos #ehlersdanlossyndrome #illness #routine #rituals #onestepatatime #gratitude #thankyou #health #mind #body
Thank you 🤗❤️ ✨
Give me good tea and I’m happy
I am filled with so much love and gratitude for this place, it’s hard to even express. And despite the fact that the positive emotions I feel for this place almost equal the negative memories I am still working on letting go, my heart aches knowing that I am leaving a place I called home for the last twenty years.
I made mistakes here.
I experienced pain and suffering here. I was young and naive.
I made friends here. Real friends I’m so grateful to have come across.
I fell in love here.
I spent sleepless nights here. Crying, laughing, secretly believing in fairytales.
I made promises here.
I saw dreams here.
I set goals and achieved them here.
I was betrayed here. By near and dear ones, and by strangers.
I learned to protect myself here.
I was diagnosed here.
I fell apart here. Completely shattered into tiny pieces, I couldn’t myself anymore anymore.
I put back myself back together here.
I faced my very own demons, alone, right here.
I learned to trust again here. Myself and people.
I found my medical team here. My support system, without whom I couldn’t have come this far.
I dared to recreate dreams here.
I learned the art of letting go, here.
I finally found my true voice here.
I learned to speak my truth here and encouraged others to do the same.
I learned to be of support and service to the world, right here too.
I came across my tribe, people like me, right here.
I felt safe here.
This is where I wilted and learned to bloom again. This is where I learned to own my story, fully and wholly.
While I can’t lie that recreating a similar lifestyle and routine else where is going to take time and more patience than ever before, I do genuinely believe that it’s not entirely impossible. Somewhere I trust that the process of wilting and blooming over and over again has equipped me with the ability to deal with uncertainties of all kinds and be okay with not knowing.
You know that feeling when you look back and think perhaps everything happened to prepare you for something that is yet to happen? That’s kind of how I feel right now. As if I have levelled up in this game called life and now need to put my skills and tools to use in order to handle the next level; the next phase. There’s a lot I still don’t know but perhaps I am able to find peace in knowing that I have made it through incredibly painful times before and probably can do so in the future too.
Singapore, thank you for all the blessings and lessons.
My Tape Story 